“Shiro dreams of sushi” is a great documentary, about a perfectionist sushi chef in Tokyo who earned himself three Michelin stars. Really worth watching.

In that documentary, a food critic says that great chefs have the following five qualities

They take their work very seriously and consistently perform at the highest level

They aspire to improve their skills

Cleanliness

Impatience

They want things their way

He also says that what makes a great chef is to bring all of these attributes together.

This reminds me of Gladwell, who describes in his book Outliers that lots and lots of experience are often needed to be really successful. There is a certain air of perfectionism in the background, too. And interestingly, many great chefs or artists have learned their trait from scratch, even though they do now things that are really out of the box. The same holds for painters, for instance, like van Gogh or Picasso.

All this makes me wonder to what extent there is a connection to academia. Successful academics are very devoted, take their work very seriously and work very hard. They keep on learning, and they stay curious. They strive for perfection, they are ambitious. And it takes a long time and a lot of training until they are at that point (I still think that it really helps to be a good classical economist to do great work in behavioral economics. And that macroeconomists can benefit from micro theory and empirical skills.). Like it does for great chefs. So far so good.

As for impatience and stubbornness I’m less sure.

There is some impatience involved, but then, what makes an academic do good work seems to be to play the long game, to make sure that contributions are as good as they get. Attention to detail is important, and so is it not to rush. Now, if one thinks of impatience as being eager to move on, that may be true, and it may be related to academics often saying that they want time to do their research.

Last, stubbornness. Yes, academics sometimes want things their way, but what seems to be important is to strike a balance between that and what is useful to society and what the community values.

In the end of the day, there seems to be a connection to being a great chef I believe, even when it comes to those last two qualities. Academics do science for others, and the same holds for preparing a great meal. And if impatience means that one is looking forward to reaching perfection to finish a project before serving it to others, then that could fit too.